Death From Above Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 I don't have the context of watching them recycle the same main event angle for basically 2 years that most of you do, but to me the main stuff isn't a problem so much as like half this show being basically directionless filler. 3 hours is just too much. But I think pretty much everyone (including Triple H) has agreed on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpst Posted December 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 They are clearly creatively bankrupt, but they also don't seem to be asleep at the wheel at the moment. It's a pathetic progress I can at least halfway admire. Is it worse that they are visibly aware of the problem but are seemingly unable to fix it than if they acted like they were unaware of the problem altogether? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 I think it's worse to be blissfully unaware than it is to be trying stuff that isn't quite hitting the mark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 So, is John Cena going to win the Royal Rumble & challenge Roman Reigns for the WWE Title as the main event at Wrestlemania? The post-match off camera showed a stare down between Reigns & Cena. Potentially testing the crowd reaction? I'm not in love with the idea of Cena winning another Rumble but Cena/Reigns has interest to me. A lot of ways that could go. I would be OK with Reigns/Brock 2 as well. Rock/HHH & Rock/Brock neither interest me though. Not a single opponent for Undertaker that I can imagine caring about either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 If Rock wrestles, I would go... Brock-Roman II Cena vs. Taker Rock vs. HHH (It keeps both guys out of the title picture and it can keep Hunter "engaged" with Roman's family) A bunch of stuff on the undercard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slasher Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 I suspect Sheamus wins the belt back with the heavy odds being too much for Reigns but not before Reigns fights so valiantly. Then keeping the belt away from Reigms til Wrestlemania. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 Considering he got injured the last two times he had a match and will be in the middle of filming a movie come WM time, the odds of Rock actually having a match seem to be pretty much zero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidebottom Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 Also, Vince called it a belt. Yeah I clocked that as well. He actually pauses for a split second before saying "WWE world championship belt" as if his brain just had a fart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jushin muta liger Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 I said this another forum but I will say it here also. So according to Cagematch, the Raw Becky vs Sasha match went 15:40 which went longer than the main event and the semi main tag match only went a minute longer. I want to know who gave them the green light to have that long of a match. I'm biased because I am a Sasha and Becky fan but I didn't think the match was boring. It had its fair share amount of awkward and clunky moments but I didn't think it was boring. It was in the ** range but they pulled out new spots and sequences for TV. That said, I'm baffled that they got 15 minutes with no build and no future implications storyline wise. They had to know the crowd would've turned on the match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 Not that the presentation was advantageous (in fact, I'd say it was actively disadvantageous) but are we seeing workers like Sasha and Becky exposed when they don't have weeks to layout, practice and memorize a match with the help of a team of seasoned veterans? Is it possible that part of the issue is also their inability to improvise? A large part of it goes on the setting, but I think it also speaks to their limitations as workers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jushin muta liger Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 Not that the presentation was advantageous (in fact, I'd say it was actively disadvantageous) but are we seeing workers like Sasha and Becky exposed when they don't have weeks to layout, practice and memorize a match with the help of a team of seasoned veterans? Is it possible that part of the issue is also their inability to improvise? A large part of it goes on the setting, but I think it also speaks to their limitations as workers.That is a valid point about them getting to practice at the Performance Center. However, you would think that house shows would compensate for the lack of time, right? For the most part, these two get put in tag matches or multi man matches for the house shows. Whereas the top guys and even the midcard guys get a decent amount of singles matches on house shows and get feedback from the agents on the road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slasher Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 No. House shows are worked in a way to make the crowds happy. They don't necessarily work the kinda match they have to work on tv. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jushin muta liger Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 No. House shows are worked in a way to make the crowds happy. They don't necessarily work the kinda match they have to work on tv. The matches do change on house shows but they do mirror a lot of the stuff that make TV afterwards. Just seeing fan cams of stuff like Owens vs Ambrose with Ambrose jumping over him to counter the power bomb or Cody Rhodes doing the moonsault off the cage against the Real Americans and then doing it on Raw weeks or months later (those are examples that come to my mind but there are others). Guy develop chemistry and you start it on the small shows and adjust for TV. I'm not asking for them to do silly spots that I've seen on fan cams but at least they can do have some single matches on the house shows before they do a 15 minute match on Raw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parties Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 I said this another forum but I will say it here also. So according to Cagematch, the Raw Becky vs Sasha match went 15:40 which went longer than the main event and the semi main tag match only went a minute longer. I want to know who gave them the green light to have that long of a match. I'm biased because I am a Sasha and Becky fan but I didn't think the match was boring. It had its fair share amount of awkward and clunky moments but I didn't think it was boring. It was in the ** range but they pulled out new spots and sequences for TV. That said, I'm baffled that they got 15 minutes with no build and no future implications storyline wise. They had to know the crowd would've turned on the match. I don't think they did expect the crowd to turn on it. It was the same building as Takeover: Brooklyn. Whoever booked it thought, "Hey, it'll be like Sasha-Bailey." I've never bought the idea that Banks and Lynch are a product of Del Ray choreographing their matches. Sasha's had really good stuff with the Bellas and Paige, albeit in shorter matches. And both her and Lynch were very good in that RAW four way that determined who got the last Nikki title match. Lynch has looked good against Charlotte, who's as bad a draw of an opponent as anyone on the current main roster. I only saw the last few mins of the match, which were fine, but it came off as a very RAW-ified version of an NXT match, with Naomi jumping onto the apron to sneak in a blatant high kick and all that. Maybe that is the fault of Banks and Lynch not knowing how to put a match together for themselves, or a case of too many cooks, or some fluke causing mistiming/miscommunication in the ring, or some combo of it all. I thought in comparison the LoN/Dean-Usos trios had less going for it than the finish of the women's match. I also think suspect there are a lot of trolls online who just don't like any of the Divas in any fashion and are going to sarcastically yawn at everything they do. Watching a chat room of people talk about them last night, there was a creepy vibe of "Women can't work, this has always been terrible and always will be terrible, Lynch isn't hot enough, etc." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slasher Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 No. House shows are worked in a way to make the crowds happy. They don't necessarily work the kinda match they have to work on tv.The matches do change on house shows but they do mirror a lot of the stuff that make TV afterwards. Just seeing fan cams of stuff like Owens vs Ambrose with Ambrose jumping over him to counter the power bomb or Cody Rhodes doing the moonsault off the cage against the Real Americans and then doing it on Raw weeks or months later (those are examples that come to my mind but there are others). Guy develop chemistry and you start it on the small shows and adjust for TV. I'm not asking for them to do silly spots that I've seen on fan cams but at least they can do have some single matches on the house shows before they do a 15 minute match on Raw.Yes they rehearse the spots that they want to use for the big tv or PPV matches but the structure is completely different. I have gone to plenty of house shows where they had the matchups that would go on to be the RAW or PPV matches within a month or two and I can only recall two matches that was practically move by move same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpst Posted December 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 Not that the presentation was advantageous (in fact, I'd say it was actively disadvantageous) but are we seeing workers like Sasha and Becky exposed when they don't have weeks to layout, practice and memorize a match with the help of a team of seasoned veterans? Is it possible that part of the issue is also their inability to improvise? A large part of it goes on the setting, but I think it also speaks to their limitations as workers. Sasha and Becky looked like they were going through a choreographed match that they hadn't practiced enough. There were points where they were doing things that made no sense in the context of the match, seemingly just waiting for a cue or visibly discussing what to do next. I don't want to sound too negative or come across like those people who are like "see, I told you they couldn't really work". The NXT women's division was my favorite thing about WWE in 2015. I don't think inability thusfar to take what made the ****+ matches in NXT so great and translate it to the main roster takes away from those matches in NXT at all. I just want them to find whatever it is and duplicate their success in a new setting. If it means more practice on house shows before doing a long TV match, then just do that and don't put the match on TV until it's ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted December 30, 2015 Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 Not that the presentation was advantageous (in fact, I'd say it was actively disadvantageous) but are we seeing workers like Sasha and Becky exposed when they don't have weeks to layout, practice and memorize a match with the help of a team of seasoned veterans? Is it possible that part of the issue is also their inability to improvise? A large part of it goes on the setting, but I think it also speaks to their limitations as workers. I think it speaks to the limitations of the WWE main roster as bookers and writers more than anything on the part of the girls. Sasha and Becky were thrown out on Raw to have a 15 minute match for no reason, with no stakes, and no really discernible character motivation from anyone involved. Neither of these girls are over on the main roster, because main roster crowds have been given zero reason to care about them. Why WOULD the crowd care about the match? If they had a year to rehearse that match in training it STILL wouldn't have gotten over any better in that building. That's why it's not the fault of the girls. Physically there were a few flubs but I mean there are those flubs in almost every match, I didn't find them particularly egregious. And there was also a lot of good stuff in there, in particular the finishing sequence which I thought was really great, they hit a LOT of twists and turns at a high pace and kept me guessing on the finish until it happened. This reminds me of when we had that big discussion about the girls when Sasha blew up six months ago, and I said something about how when a guy with indy or now NXT cred gets called up to the main roster, is given no character or storylines or booking help and thrown into meaningless midcard matches, people tend to take the view that "he's a good worker being held back by their shitty booking". But when a girl with NXT cred gets called up to the main roster, is given no character or storylines or booking help and thrown into meaningless midcard matches, people tend to say "well she's not that good after all since she's so shitty on the main roster". It happened to Emma, then Paige, then Charlotte, and will now even hit Sasha and Becky. I'm sure it will happen to Bayley when she goes. I wouldn't be surprised if even Asuka wasn't immune. Girls, like guys, don't suddenly become shitty wrestlers overnight. Girls, like guys, need some semblance of help from booking if their matches are going to have ANY heat whatsoever. Girls, like guys, can't wrestle meaningless matches in a vacuum and have it look the same as when they are actually featured and protected and over and have storylines. Girls, like guys, can only do so much with chicken shit. The problem is not with the talent level of Sasha, or Becky, or really any of the girls. We know what they're capable of. The problem is with WWE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 30, 2015 Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 Great workers tend to overcome those things. How many times did Daniel Bryan get a crowd hot by the end of a match in 2010-2011 when they had zero interest to start? It's part of what a great worker is supposed to do. Yes, you want advantageous booking and they've been put in tough spots over and over for a few months now, and yes, I agree they should be able to rehearse if that's what they need to do to make the match work. There's nothing wrong with calling them limited workers and it's not even an insult -- it's on WWE to see that and put them in positions to succeed. But it's also on them to be able to deliver a good match (and win the crowd over when the crowd isn't initially receptive) when they are given the time. Maybe that would be a fair point if the idea of a match winning over a crowd despite being presented as unimportant was something unprecedented. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russellmania Posted December 30, 2015 Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 I thought they won a lot of the crowd over by the end actually Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted December 30, 2015 Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 I think in the case of women's wrestling in WWE you have to acknowledge the higher degree of difficulty in getting a crowd into a match that they don't care about. WWE crowds are predisposed to not give a shit about women's matches, because they've been trained by the company not to, that they're the bathroom breaks. And it's going to take a lot more than "Divas Revolution" lip service to change that. Men don't have that same handicap, even when met with apathy. Crowds expect a guy like Daniel Bryan to go out there and have a good wrestling match. Even at a time when he's not over as a character to the masses, there's still some understanding that he's a "good wrestler". They are predisposed to see it and acknowledge it when they do. It's not out of the realm of the norm for a small, male worker to get over in the ring in WWE. It's a lot harder for a female worker to do the same, because crowds aren't predisposed to see it or acknowledge it. They're used to the women being the bathroom break, having short matches that aren't supposed to be "good wrestling". It's hard to overcome that kind of ingrained audience training, even if you have a solidly worked match that should get over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slasher Posted December 30, 2015 Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 The girls had an advantage compared to guys who used to come in cold from other promotions. They rose through the ranks of the best drawing "indy" which I think it is fair to say 80% of the people watching WWE are also watching NXT by now. It isn't like they are coming in unproven. People were chanting for Sasha even before she officially got called up. So that explanation doesn't work IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpst Posted December 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 The big "We Want Sasha" chant during another match was even at the last Raw in the same venue. Maybe that was due to her Takeover match that weekend, but it certainly wasn't due to her booking up to that point in the Diva's Revolution. The crowd also didn't seem to be particularly dead near the end of Monday's match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted December 30, 2015 Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 The girls had an advantage compared to guys who used to come in cold from other promotions. They rose through the ranks of the best drawing "indy" which I think it is fair to say 80% of the people watching WWE are also watching NXT by now. It isn't like they are coming in unproven. People were chanting for Sasha even before she officially got called up. So that explanation doesn't work IMO. 80% is way too high with Network subs hovering around the 1 million mark and Raw getting over 3 million viewers each week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted December 30, 2015 Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 Yeah that is a laughably high estimate of NXT's reach. There are only a millionish Network subbers and not everyone with a sub will watch NXT. Having said that, there's always the smarky, NXT aware guys in thethe front rows of TV tapings, especially in a place as smart as Brooklyn. The last time WWE was in Brooklyn Sasha had barely debuted on Raw, and that hardcore crowd chanted "WE WANT SASHA" all weekend, off the back of her NXT run. Less than six months later that same crowd couldn't give a shit about her and chanted "BORING" during her match. What changed to make them stop caring about her? Her ability? Hardly since she had another MOTYC in NXT in the meantime. Or maybe it's the fact that WWE have done absolutely nothing with her in these six months and their excitement at seeing NXT Sasha on Raw has been killed, because nothing has changed and all the girls are in a muddled angle going nowhere. To the question of overcoming that with work, I'd ask you to consider, of the things Sasha has active control over, what about her performances has really changed or got worse? She's the same physically, has all of her moves as far as I can see, she does the same heel schtick when she's in control, she has good finishing sequences...I guess my question is what could she do differently in the ring? Her problems begin and end with her matches having no purpose and no heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotJayTabb Posted December 30, 2015 Report Share Posted December 30, 2015 Part of me wonders if the "boring" chants might be backlash over the hype that Sasha and Becky have been receiving. Using the figures above, there will be a lot of people who've never seen NXT, but have heard people chanting "We want Sasha" and wondered what all the fuss is about. Given the way WWE have long portrayed women's wrestling as filler, I can imagine some of the crowd writing it off as hipster contrarianism and going in with a "Go on, impress me" attitude, and when the match wasn't blow-away amazing, you get that reaction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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